There’s a big difference between getting a result for eight weeks and actually learning how to create results you can maintain.
For our Essendon member Anne, this challenge wasn’t her first experience with an eight week transformation. She had actually won a challenge many years ago. But this time, the process looked very different.
Less restriction. Less flogging herself in the gym. More education, better fuelling, smarter training and a much healthier relationship with food.
And the result? Anne lost 6.7kg of fat while maintaining her muscle mass across the eight weeks.
But perhaps more importantly, she got something she had been wanting for a long time.
She wanted to be in the photos.
Anne has been training with 23W for almost a year, initially joining to rebuild her core and strength after having her daughter.
As her daughter’s first birthday approached, Anne felt like she finally had the mental space to put a little more focus into herself.
“I started with 23W to help rebuild my core and strength after I had my daughter. I did this challenge because with my daughter’s first birthday approaching, I felt I had enough mental space to be able to really focus on nutrition and lock in to start seeing and feeling the hard work I’d been putting in on the gym floor.”
But the timing wasn’t exactly simple. Anne was also returning to work after parental leave, which meant establishing an entirely new routine around work, childcare, training, family life and nutrition.
She didn’t want a plan that required life to stop for eight weeks. She needed something that could exist alongside it.
“I needed to build a new gym routine that worked around my work and my daughter’s childcare, and build nutritional habits that were sustainable during my transition back into work, without being too rigid that I was missing out on social and work events.”
And this is such an important distinction.
The goal wasn’t perfection. It was finding a way of doing things that could survive real life.
Anne had a very personal reason for wanting to make a change.
With her daughter’s first birthday approaching, she knew there would be photos. She also knew that historically she had avoided being in them because she didn’t feel comfortable with how she looked.
“My goal was to get to a weight where I felt comfortable being in photos, as I knew I would want photos with my daughter to look back at, but often felt embarrassed and hated how I looked in photos so avoided having my photo taken.”
Eight weeks later, the physical results were significant.
Anne lost 6.7kg of fat while maintaining her muscle mass.
But her favourite result wasn’t found on an InBody scan.
“Importantly, at my daughter’s first birthday party and since, I actually wanted to be in photos.”
One of Anne’s biggest learnings came from nutrition.
Like many people who have dieted before, she came into the challenge feeling like she already had a pretty good understanding of what she “should” be doing.
Working with her coach helped uncover something unexpected.
“I thought I knew everything about nutrition, but my coach helped me realise I was under fuelling calories and not eating enough fat, which was actually undermining my results.”
Rather than simply slashing calories and adding more exercise, the focus became properly fuelling her body, understanding her macros and creating habits she could maintain.
Anne also worked on her relationship with food and drinking, particularly around social occasions.
“I’m very disciplined when I have a goal so it’s usually not the day to day eating or training I struggle with, but social or work events where I can sometimes get carried away. My biggest challenge was striking the balance of still being able to enjoy these events without going overboard.”
That balance became one of the most valuable parts of the process.
Another important lesson came when Anne became unwell during the challenge.
Previously, getting sick may have meant trying to push through anyway because missing training felt like falling behind.
This time, she did something different.
She rested.
“I was also really unwell for a week of the challenge and couldn’t train. Previously I would have tried to push my body through, but I’ve learnt to give my body rest when I need it and that doing so won’t undermine achieving my goals.”
One week away from training didn’t undo her progress.
If anything, learning when to back off became another skill she could take forward.
Anne describes the experience in one word:
Empowering.
“I know more now than I did 8 weeks ago and my relationship with food has really healed.”
And that education is particularly meaningful because Anne has done an eight week challenge before. The first time, she won.
But looking back, she recognises that the methods she used to get there weren’t something she could realistically carry into everyday life.
“I’ve won an 8 week challenge many years ago, but did so by rigidly following the set 1400 calorie diet and absolutely flogging myself 6 days a week in the gym without actually learning anything.”
This time, the goal was never to simply survive eight weeks.
“This challenge, I was empowered to know the right macros to aim for, learnt from the education seminars and had accountability and support with regular check ins, all of which have given me skills I’ll take with me for the rest of my life, rather than only applying rigid rules for 8 weeks, then going back to old habits.”
And really, that sums up exactly what we want these challenges to be about. Yes, physical results matter.
But the bigger win is finishing with more knowledge, more confidence and a better understanding of your own body than you had when you started.
Anne worked closely with her coach Jacinta throughout the eight weeks.
“My coach Jacinta was so supportive and empowering and provided me with lots of encouragement and really helpful advice.”
Importantly, their work hasn’t stopped because the challenge has finished.
Jacinta is now helping Anne through a reverse dieting phase, gradually transitioning out of the challenge so that the focus becomes maintaining the results she has worked so hard for.
“She’s also helping me reverse diet out of the challenge which is a step I’ve never done properly and will help me maintain my results.”
And then?
There’s another goal waiting.
Anne is now turning her attention back towards building strength and preparing for her first 23W Lifting Party.
From rebuilding her core after having her daughter, to returning to work, changing her relationship with food, losing 6.7kg of fat while maintaining muscle and finally wanting to jump into those family photos, Anne’s journey has been about so much more than an eight week result.
And we cannot wait to see what she does next.
Ange Drake is a personal trainer, women’s empowerment coach and fitness blogger in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. She is the director of one of the few womens’ only strength training gyms in Melbourne, 23W. Ange helps women to learn how to use strength based training, nutritional strategies and a positive mindset to transform their bodies, relationship with food and mind.
